Sucker Bet
by Susanne Barringer
Summary: Post-episode for Empedocles. I imagine there's one thing to which Doggett had a hard time adjusting after Mulder's return.


TITLE: Sucker Bet   
AUTHOR: Susanne Barringer  
EMAIL: sbarringer@usa.net  
ARCHIVE: Anywhere okay, but drop me a line when you get a chance.  
CATEGORY: V  
SPOILERS: Through Empedocles  
RATING: PG  
SUMMARY: Post-ep for Empedocles. I imagine there's one thing to which Doggett had a hard time adjusting after Mulder's return.  
DISCLAIMER: Characters borrowed from all the appropriate people. No infringement intended.  
  
Thanks to Sue Schramm for saving Doggett from an unintentional eye injury, among other beta duties.  
  
________  
  
  
Sucker Bet  
by Susanne Barringer  
  
  
I hear them before I've even rounded the corner to their office. I've never fooled myself into thinking it's mine, not with those UFO pictures plastered all over the walls. The door is open and their voices carry loudly through the hallway.  
  
"Scully, give it to me! It's mine!"  
  
"Let go of me, Mulder, you're squishing me!"  
  
"You're too big to squish."  
  
I hear the sharp intake of breath on her part, the feigned offense. "Oh, you are so dead!"  
  
"I've already been dead, Scully. Remember, it didn't stick?"  
  
She squeals suddenly, then laughs. "Get OFF me or I'll make it stick!"  
  
I'm not in time to catch the action. When I enter, Agent Mulder is reaching out to touch Agent Scully's enlarged belly, and she is flushed and out of breath. I have no idea what I've walked into, but I have a feeling I should be glad I wasn't a minute earlier.  
  
They seem to sense my presence at the same time, looking back toward me in surprise.  
  
"Hi," says Agent Mulder, before dropping his hand from her stomach. "We were just..."  
  
"Flipping a coin," finishes Agent Scully. She holds out her hand to reveal a shiny quarter. "It's heads," she adds, looking up toward Mulder with a grin of triumph and a look that could bring a man to his knees in devotion.  
  
"Oh yeah?" Mulder slaps at her hand, sending the quarter flying in my direction. I duck as it sails over my head and plinks against the wall behind me.  
  
"Ohhhh, sorry!" Scully looks sheepish as she stifles a laugh.  
  
The one thing that has taken some getting used to since Mulder's return is how much Scully smiles. She is truly happy, and beautiful in that happiness. The return of the missing part of her has changed the person she is, the person whom I've known. It's like trying to get to know her all over again.  
  
I have never scored a smile like that from her, not even close, and I wonder what it would take. Seven years of arguing over aliens and monsters? Coming back from the dead? I'm hoping for something simpler.  
  
"It was not heads," Mulder objects, hands on his hips.  
  
"Yes, it was. You saw it yourself, you cheat."  
  
Clearly, it makes absolutely no difference that I'm here. They stand and smile at each other while I wait uncomfortably.  
  
"I just came to get some notes," I finally say, and they both turn toward me as if noticing for the first time that I'm standing here.  
  
"Sure," says Mulder with a shrug, "it's your office." There isn't a bit of sarcasm behind his words, which I appreciate even if the statement isn't true. Instead, it's Scully who laughs. I still can't get used to it.  
  
I make my way over to the desk and flip through the pile of files stacked there. I can't help but watch the two of them--the way they stand close, but not too close, the way they look at each other, but not too much. They're talking about something, but softly enough so I can only catch a word every now and then. It's intimate in the most couple-ish of ways, even though, from what I hear, it appears they're simply talking about where to go for lunch. Scully smiles about every thirty seconds on average. How does he do that?  
  
Frankly, I'm jealous. It's not so much their romance, although I certainly miss the intimacy and companionship, but how amazingly their relationship has blossomed and strengthened from tragedy and death. My experience has been the opposite, and it's too late now for me to do anything but wish that it had turned out differently.  
  
I have seen how loss destroys those who are left behind, how grief becomes anger, then solitude. How depression comes from that, and then resentment, and then distance from all that you have known in your life.  
  
I have seen how the loss of one results in the loss of everything, until trust is gone and the only one left who you love seeks out what she needs from someone else--someone who can never give her what she really needs, but who doesn't look at her with eyes that reflect what has been lost.  
  
I have seen what evil of paranormal strength destroys, and I have seen what the most basic humanness can destroy. The former happens in one fell swoop, a stab to the heart that creates unbearable pain. The latter happens over time, slowly eating away at what is valued, piece by piece, until the ache builds up enough to overwhelm life. It is hard to tell which takes the longest to recover from.  
  
I have seen all of that, so I know that what Mulder and Scully have defies all logic, defies everything I know about what comes from tragedy. My son, my marriage, my entire life--I lost it all in a sucker bet on happily ever after. I know nothing else, yet I see how they, together, have beaten the long odds every time.  
  
Just a week ago, Mulder and I had a conversation outside Agent Scully's hospital room about evil. Mulder theorized that it spreads like disease, perhaps even threatening those weakened by tragedy and loss, those whose immunity has been compromised by sorrow and grief.  
  
I never said the one thing I was thinking, of which I have now seen proof. If there is anyone who represents the opposite of that epidemic of evil, it is Agent Scully. I can't miss the history of good that passes through her, spreading out to others. I see everyday the thread of truth running through her, and I have seen the visions that her courage to believe has created.  
  
As I watch her now, smiling at Mulder during their little tete-a-tete, I see it in spades. Maybe she can help him; maybe she can bring him fully back to life.  
  
Because I see something else, too, something in Mulder's eyes. A lost look, like he's not sure quite where he fits, like he doesn't feel comfortable in his new skin. I imagine it's the look that comes from being dead for three months and finding that the world has moved on without you and you can't get it back. Would you forever feel three months behind, three months out of the loop?  
  
She doesn't see it, or if she does she hides it behind those glorious smiles of hers. He doesn't let her see it, I think, covering it up with jokes about making up for lost time, when he knows they have lost much more than that.  
  
We have all lost more than time, something we would willingly sacrifice to get back everything else. All the smiles in the world can't replace what they, and I, have spent a lifetime losing, but perhaps those smiles of hers can stop the disease, the infestation.  
  
Is it impossible to believe that she simply willed Agent Mulder back to life? I've read enough X-Files to know that there are exceptions to everything, including death, and believing Scully wanted Mulder alive makes as much sense as any of the other possible explanations that have been dished up by her or A.D. Skinner.  
  
I certainly understand that need, the devastating desperation of willing someone back to life, of wishing away a tragedy. If wishes were horses, I would be a world-class equestrian.  
  
They finish their conversation and step apart. I immediately return to my files, realizing it's taken me far too long to look for a few notes.   
  
Scully approaches my desk. "Mulder and I are going to lunch. Do you want to come?"  
  
I look past her to Agent Mulder, who gives a little shrug. Ladies' choice, apparently. I can't help but imagine the coin flip was about this, although that makes me seem paranoid. Heads, we invite Doggett. Tails, we leave him here alone where he belongs. Somehow I suspect the odds were never in my favor. It doesn't feel good to have become so trivial, although I'm not sure I was ever anything but.  
  
"Uh, thanks, Agent Scully, but I need to review my notes from the Thompson case."  
  
Mulder turns immediately toward the door, relieved no doubt, but Scully persists.  
  
"Come on, Agent Doggett. You have to eat." And then she smiles. At me. Just like that.  
  
I consider the options but decide that being a third wheel is not what I need today, smile or no smile. "I really do have to get this done."  
  
"Fine, but next time for sure, okay?"  
  
"Yeah, okay, next time."  
  
She smiles again and I might as well have won the Kentucky Derby for as good as it feels. No wonder Mulder came back from the dead.  
  
"See ya later." She walks toward the door where Mulder is holding up her coat for her. She slides into it, then he straightens out her collar where it has folded under behind her neck. He pats her on the arm when he's done, and she shoots him a smile over her shoulder. It's so goddammed easy for him.  
  
I stand in the doorway, listening to their banter as they round the corner and wait for the elevator.  
  
"Mulder, it was heads and you know it. I pick, you pay."  
  
"Not fair when you're eating for two. Nearly three, judging by breakfast."  
  
"You try hauling around a small person and see how you do."  
  
"Hey, I've been hauling you around for years and did you ever hear me complain?"  
  
"Shut up, Mulder."   
  
It's a fair bet she smiles as she says it.  
  
  
~~~~~~~~~~  
  
END  
  
  
A little practice Doggett before I do a bigger Doggett story. Let me know how it went. sbarringer@usa.net  
  
All my fic can be found at http://www.geocities.com/s_barringer  
  
  
  
  



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